Royce's Random Thoughts

Shadow of Doubt, the next chapter in the exciting Red Vixen Adventures series is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com, for the low price of $3.49!

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Love doesn't equal acceptance...

The foxen noblevixen Lady Sallivera Darktail is returning home to Foxen Prime for some much needed medical attention, accompanied by her bodyguard and lover, Alinadar. But her chance for rest is short-lived, as she must face her parents' disapproval in her choice of an ex-pirate and convicted criminal as her beloved.

Meanwhile Alinadar has her own troubles. A convicted pirate and ex-child soldier, she must attempt to reconnect to a family she'd thought long lost. But how can she find peace with so much blood on her hands? And how can she convince Salli's disapproving family to accept her?

And unbeknownst to both of them, the enemy that has harried the House Darktail for so long has one more strike prepared to doom Salli and Ali's hard fought love.

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Shadow of Doubt will release on June 1st.

Okay fixed the bits at the end of Shadow of Doubt to remove the nonsense about Ali's appearance being de-aged. Now I just need to find beta readers to look over the complete document to see if I missed anything important.

Civil Protection arrived, again, within a few minutes of Zaker’s call. Detective Lt. Lightfoot arrived with them, and took statements from Zaker, Salli, Fin, Razi and Karra, as well as downloading the damning audio log from the parlor’s com. He completed his tasks with ill grace, looking decidedly disgruntled at having his investigation short-circuited by an amateur.

“If you had gotten yourself shot by that vixen,” he jammed a thumb at Nari, still unconscious and being strapped to a stretcher for transport to the CP station, “I’d be having a very unpleasant conversation with your lady mother right now.”

“Well I didn’t, so it worked out,” Salli told him. “Don’t worry, I’m certain my mother will repeat the same points that you and Officer Fin have made to me. Repeatedly.”

“Just don’t get the idea of taking up detecting as a hobby,” he grumbled.

“No worries there, Detective. I will be returning to my duties as Governor of Greenholme as soon as…” Salli frowned, thinking of Ali still lying in her hospital bed. “Well, as soon as I am able.”

“Are we done here?” Razi asked. “I want to see Ali before we have to go home.”

“I think so,” Lightfoot said. “I need to follow up to HQ and interrogate our suspect once she wakes up.”

“And I need to talk to my parents so they have a chance to chastise me,” Salli said. “Razi, Karra, I’ll follow along when I can.” She exchanged hugs with the two vixens, then took her leave and headed up to her parent’s office.

( Now where did she put that Chekhov's Gun? )

She had Zaker drive her home. From there Salli retreated to the conference parlor to think.

Despite her desperate need to find Ali’s poisoner, no clues came to her. Could it have been the same person Ali had theorized, the hidden traitor that had aided Countess Highglider and her minion Lt. Hotclaw? If so, why risk the attacks, when their mistress was long dead? Revenge, out of a twisted loyalty unto death and beyond? Or perhaps they were just working for a new master?

That was a horrible thought, because the next logical suspect in that chain was Aggie, the new Lady Highglider. Salli certainly hoped it wasn’t true. Mother Goddess bless her, she was growing to like Aggie, even if the former Military caste vixen had been visibly annoyed at the sudden career switch.

Argh, this was so utterly frustrating! The answer had be in this house somewhere, probably right in front of her...

( Why yes it is. )

Salli spreads the word. Contains a revised version of Ali's Shame, courtesy of notes from siderea

* * *

Her call to Ali’s Aunt Razi was short. A medical tech herself, Razi took in the details calmly  and asked a series of short, to the point questions about Ali’s condition, most of which Salli didn’t have the answers to. But even through her hand comp’s voice connection, Salli could hear how thin the veneer of clinical detachment was holding in the older vixen’s voice.

“You'll let me know if anything changes? You’ll let me know immediately, yes?” Razi demanded at the end of the conversation.

“My word as Lady Darktail,” Salli promised.

“Thank you.”

After that she found a vending machine that dispensed a terrible cup of tea, along with a sandwich that might have been sitting in there since the prior Solstice, both of which she consumed without actually tasting anything. Then she sat down on a plastic chair, a large plastic bag containing her blood stained dress beside her, and waited. What else was there to do?

The sun was starting to set outside the windows of the emergency room’s family waiting area, when Zaker walked in. She looked around a moment, before finally spotting Salli and striding over. “Milady,” she greeted, her expression uncharacteristically grim. “How’s Alinadar?”

( More clues, more mysteries )

Salli met Phillip in the conference parlor once again, seating herself in one of the comfortable padded chairs. She watched for a few moments as he puttered around, arranging a second chair next to her for Ali, and one across from her for the reporter, neither of whom had arrived yet..

“All set, Milady?” he asked. “Where’s Miss Blacksailor?”

“Still dressing. I just spoke to her before I came downstairs,” Salli answered. Ali had been looking a bit twitchy and unhappy, and had asked her to go ahead while she prepared herself. Salli couldn’t blame her. It had been a long time since her last Media Relations course in finishing school, and poor Ali didn’t even have that much preparation for this.

“All right then. Hopefully this will be a loose, friendly interview. Just answer all the questions straight. These Oceanic News fellows enjoy pouncing on evasive Nobles. If you start getting uncomfortable, just give me a signal and I’ll wrap things up for you.”

“I understand,” she said.

Phillip nodded. “He’s probably going to direct a lot of questions towards Miss Blacksailor. If they get too personal I’ll deflect them, but we need to let her know that contradicting the basic facts in her criminal case probably won’t end well.”

“I don’t think that will be problem.” Given Ali’s usual stoic resignation towards her crimes, it was more likely she’d just nod in agreement with every accusation and provide even more damning details, Salli thought.

Phillip’s palm comp beeped. He gave a sharp nod as he checked it, rising to his feet. “The reporter is at the front entrance. I’ll bring him in for you.”

“Thank you, Phillip.” Salli waited as he left to get the reporter, wondering what was taking Ali.

He returned a few moments later, a familiar, gangly foxen following from behind. Oh, of course it would be him.

“Lady Darktail! A pleasure to see you again,” Nef Clawstroke greeted her cheerfully. He stuck out his paw, and Salli stood briefly to shake it, then settled back down in her chair.

“Mr. Clawstroke, what a surprise,” she admitted. “I thought you were covering the orbital beat.”

“Oh, I move up and down, depending on where the story is,” he said. “Since I’d already interviewed you both before, my editor thought it best if I did the follow up.”

That wasn’t an interview earlier, it was an ambush, she thought irritably. “I see. So, what topics would you like to discuss today?”

“Oh you and Miss Blacksailor. Particularly how you met and what seemed to spark the attraction between you, especially after you learned about her history.” He looked around the conference parlor. “Speaking of which, where is she?”

“Not here yet,” she admitted. She pulled out her palm comp to check Ali’s location. It showed she was still in her room. Which was a little annoying, but understandable. It was possible that Ali had funked out like when she had been unexpectedly introduced to her long lost brother Lu so recently. “She’s in her room. I’ll go see what is delaying her. Phillip, please stay and keep Mr. Clawstroke company.” No need to drag the reporter along for what might be an emotional moment with Ali.

As she stood up, Salli’s palm comp let out a loud emergency beep, pitched to scrape along a foxen’s auditory nerve like claws on a blackboard. Startled, she nearly dropped it before answering, “This is Salli, what’s the matter?”

“It’s Zaker, milady!” came the urgent reply, her voice shouting into Sali’s ear. In the background she could hear agonized growling and screams, which with a shock Salli recognized as coming from Ali. “I need you up in Ali’s room immediately!”

( Ali Must Suffer )

Later that afternoon, after she’d cleaned up and left Ali to a well-earned post-coital nap, Salli hunted down her father in his personal office on the ground floor, not the one on the upper level he shared with Mother. The door was open and she found him leaning back in his desk chair, fingers laced over his paunch as he stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

“Hello, Father. Is now a good time?” she asked cautiously.

He smiled in irony. “I doubt any time would be a good time, but this will do.” He sat up and waved her in. “Shut the door and have a seat, would you, dear?”

( Ali and Salli's relationship isn't the only one in jeopardy. )

Note: Revised and expanded from the original version.

* * *

Salli stood in front her parents, palms clasped tightly behind her back, feeling her toe claws dig into the soft carpeting on the floor. She tried to moderate her anger. Her earlier outcry had been a mistake in this arena. Soft words, she reminded herself, would be more cutting.

Any more soft words in Ali’s direction, and I do believe she will bleed to death from them.

“May I ask you a question?” Salli said to her parents. Her mother looked back at her with a look of mild exasperation. Her father’s expression was more embarrassed. Good. She would keep her focus on Mother then.

“What more questions could you have, Sallivera?” her mother asked. “The matter is settled.”

“To your satisfaction, perhaps. Not to mine,” Salli answered tightly.

“What do you need to know, Salli dear?” her father asked, shooting a quelling to look to her mother.

“What would be enough?” Salli demanded, flexing her finger claws against her palm pads. They dug in, little sparks of pain. Nothing compared to the pain in her heart, but enough to remind her of her goal here.

( Turning point )

Salli arrived home to find Ali waiting for her in the foyer. Giving the shorter vixen a brief nod of welcome, she asked, “Everything alright?” Ali looked and smelled like she’d been working out, and she was bouncing on her footpads slightly in the manner she did when she was fully alert and engaged with something.

“Good,” Ali replied, falling in step with Salli as they headed up the stairs towards her suite. “Just had a chat with Nav and Ned, Karra and Fin’s boys.”

“Yes, you mentioned them before. I thought their mother had forbidden you to contact her family.”

“Yeah, well, the twins didn’t seem to think that was a great idea, so they went over their parents’ ears and got my number from Aunt Razi. They… they really seem like they want me to stick around.” Ali smiled uncertainly, in manner that said I haven’t the faintest idea why.

Salli squeezed Ali’s paw tightly. “You doubted this?”

She shrugged. “I’m still get used to the idea of people liking me. I mean… I know people like me. You do. So does Lady Melanie. It’s just… most other people either were afraid of me or thought I was a… um...”

“A useful tool?” Salli asked gently.

“Yeah.” Ali shook her head briefly, apparently trying to dispel the dark thought. “Enough about me. How was the second part of the ceremony?”

“Routine, mostly.” Salli described Aganatha’s execution of the invading drone, which actually made Ali laugh.

“Okay, she sounds like she’s going to be fun,” Ali admitted.

“Indeed. I was prepared to dislike her just because she was a Highglider. I’m glad to proven…”

Before she could finish her sentence there was a high pitched scream from the direction of Salli’s suite. Ali responded instantly, flipping her stunner out from its wrist holster, and raising her other paw to warn Salli to stay back as she jogged quickly down the hallway.

As Ali came closer, she jumped back a step when Nari came stumbling out, crying and gasping, an empty laundry basket hanging sidewise in one paw. “What happened?” Ali demanded, Nari backed up against the wall, ears flat to her head in terror.

“Milady’s bedchamber!” she gibbered. “The sheets!”

Down the hallway, Zaker pounded to the top of the stairs, stunner in her paw, and came rushing towards them. “I heard a scream, what happened?” she demanded.

Nari was close to sobbing. “The sheets on Milady’s bed… All that blood.”

“Don’t smell blood,” Ali muttered, poking her head into the room. After a quick peek she stepped further inside. Salli heard her utter a brief expletive, more in annoyance rather than distress it sounded like, then she called out, “It’s alright, Milady!”

Salli stepped inside, Zaker and a still trembling and sniffling Nari following. From the direction of her bedroom she could smell the distinct odor of paint wafting into the living room. She found Ali holstering her stunner by the bed, the top sheets stained by a bright red, half-dried puddle.

“It’s not blood, it’s paint,” Ali said, black nose wrinkling.

“So I see,” Salli agreed, the pungent smell reaching her own nostrils. Obviously Nari had stepped into the room, panicked at the sight of what she thought was blood, and ran out before she could get a good whiff. At first all she could feel was annoyance at Nari’s overreaction, then she realized the obvious conclusion. Someone broke into my room.

“There’s the paint canister,” Zaker pointed to a small, half liter plastic canister on the floor with the label of a common commercial paint company. “Don’t’ touch anything, Ali. The CP’s are going to want to go over the whole room.”

“I wasn’t,” Ali said defensively. She turned to Salli. “Milady, if someone could break in here and do that…”

“...we have a definite security issue,” Salli finished. “Zaker, contact Civil Protection. Ali, stay by the hallway door. Don’t let anyone in until the CP’s arrive.”

“Yes, milady,” they both replied in unison, before exchanging a bemused look with each other.

Salli took Nari by the arm, leading her back out into the hallway as Zaker contacted the CP’s on her phone and Ali stood feet apart by the door. “Nari, that paint looked like it had been drying for a bit. Did you see anyone suspicious near my suite or in the hallway. Anyone you didn’t know, or shouldn’t have been in this part of the house?”

“No, milady. I swear I didn’t,” Nari replied earnestly, her tail still floofed out in panic.

“It’s all right, Nari,” Salli said calmly. “No one is blaming you for this.”

“Thank you, milady. I’m sorry I screamed. It was… was just such a shock.”

Salli laid a calming paw on Nari shoulder. “I know it must have been.”

“But you don’t look worried, milady,” Nari said, her look of panic easing.

She smiled grimly. “I’ve seen worse.”

Since Ali was still forbidden from accompanying Salli to official functions, she had to drag Zaker along with to the second part of Lady Highglider’s investure ceremony, which involved a trip to her new manor house in Highglider domain. Which unfortunately was also the old manor house that Countess Evelina Highglider, and her son, had occupied. And for two brief and terrifying years, Salli had as well.

She stepped out of the ground skimmer, and had to pause, looking up at the thick stone walls of the main house with trepidation.

Highglider and her son are dead, she told herself, with less conviction than she liked. No one here means you harm.

( For once, she's right )